Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
July
6, 2004
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
June
29, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Cloak-and-Dagger Handover
Robert
Fisk
Alice in an Iraqi Wonderland
Troy
Selvaratnam
New York Times Boosts Pet Developer
Harry
Browne
Bush in Ireland
Ray
McGovern
The CIA According to Anonymous
Elaine
Cassel
Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul: Who Really
Won?
June
28, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn / Leyla Linton
Grisly Rituals in Iraq
Amira
Hass
Confronting Myths and Deadly Power
June
26 / 27, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
Patrick
Cockburn
Iyad Allawi, the CIA's New Stooge
in Iraq
Dennis
Hans
Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney,
the NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11
Ben
Tripp
Adventures in Fuel Efficiency
Dave
Lindorff
That State Department Terrorism
Report: What They Knew, But Didn't Tell You
Chris
Floyd
Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit
Ali
Tonak
Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives,
Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela
Keith
Rosenthal
The Withering of the Anti-War Movement
Bryan
Sacks
The Failure of the 9/11 Commission
Wayne
Madsen
Another Case of Blowback
Thomas
St. John
L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating
in the Wizard of Oz
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
American Swadeshi
June
25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul
Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege:
Bush Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack
McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal?
Did Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diana Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June
19 / 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation
on Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother
Nature
Col.
Dan Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis
in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a
Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June
18, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave
Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player
& Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American
Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
18, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
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WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
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A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
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Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
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|
July
5, 2004
How
Israel "Disperses" Demonstrations
Chemical
Warfare on the West Bank?
By
JAMES BROOKS
"On June 10th, 2004, the
two clinics in Al-Zawiya treated 130 patients for gas inhalation.
The patients were children, women, old people and young men.
Dr. Abu Madi related that there was a high number of cases of
[tetany], spasm in legs and hands, connected to the nervous system.
Pupils were dilated...Other symptoms included shock, semi-consciousness,
hyperventilation, irritation and sweating." (1)
Thus reads a report by medical units
serving the West Bank village of Al-Zawiya, where nonviolent
resistance to Israel's impending wall has been extraordinarily
resolute. According to the medical report (procured by the International
Middle East Media Center - IMEMC), "the gas used against
the protestors is not tear gas but possibly a nerve gas."
The following day, Israel's
'Peace Bloc', Gush Shalom, began a press release with the following
quote from Al-Zawiya: "What the army used here yesterday
was not tear gas. We know what tear gas is, what it feels like.
That was something totally different.... When we were still a
long way off from where the bulldozers were working, they started
shooting things like this one (holding up a dark green metal
tube with the inscription "Hand and rifle grenade no.400"
- in English). Black smoke came out. Anyone who breathed it lost
consciousness immediately, more than a hundred people. They remained
unconscious for nearly 24 hours. One is still unconscious, at
Rapidiya Hospital in Nablus. They had high fever and their muscles
became rigid. Some needed urgent blood transfusion. Now, is this
a way of dispersing a demonstration, or is it chemical warfare?"
(2)
The incident in Al-Zawiya appears
to be the tenth attack by Israeli soldiers using an "unknown
gas" against Palestinian civilians since early 2001. We
have photographs of the canisters. We have film of victims suffering
in the hospital. We have interviews with Palestinian and European
doctors who have treated the victims. And we presumably have
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of survivors. But we know nothing
of their fate. Despite the evidence, we have not inquired.
Though it is a state secret,
Israel's development of chemical and biological weapons has been
known and analyzed for decades. From the typhoid poisoning of
Palestinian wells and water supplies in 1948 (3,4) to the conversion
of F-16s into nerve gas 'crop dusters' in 1998 (5), Israel has
always demonstrated a strong interest in developing CBW agents
and methods for their dispersal.
In 1992 an El Al 747 flying
nerve gas ingredients from the US to Israel crashed into an Amsterdam
apartment building. (6) According to Salman Abu-Sitta, president
of the Palestine Land Society, the respected Dutch daily NRC
Handelsblad followed up the crash with an in-depth investigation
of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), Israel's
CBW complex in Nes Ziona. The paper reportedly found "strong
links" with several US CBW and medical research centers,
"close cooperation between IIBR and the British-American
biological warfare programme", and "extensive collaboration
on BW research with Germany and Holland." (7)
At IIBR, doctors publish world-class
research in acetylcholine, the mother lode of nerve gas design.
The Nes Ziona complex is reputed to have invented an "undetectable"
poison-needle gun for "clean" assassinations. (8) In
September 1997, two days after Jordan's King Hussein told Israeli
PM Netanyahu that Hamas was seeking negotiations, Mossad agents
in Jordan attempted to kill Hamas leader Khaled Misha'al with
a lethal dose of fentanyl. (9)
For years, rumors persisted
that Israel was using or testing unknown chemical agents on Palestinian
civilians. The rumors began to reveal their substance February
12, 2001, when Israel began a six-week campaign of "novel
gas" attacks in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. By chance,
American filmmaker James Longley arrived in Khan Younis, Gaza
in the middle of the first attack. That afternoon he began filming
the victims. His award-winning film, Gaza Strip, documents the
naked reality of Israel's chemical weaponry_the canisters, the
doctors, the eyewitnesses, and the hideous suffering of the victims,
many of whom remained hospitalized for days or weeks. (10)
The February 12 gassing of
neighborhoods in Khan Younis presaged the attacks that followed.
When the gas canisters landed, they began to billow clouds of
either white or black, sooty smoke. The gas was non-irritating
and initially odorless, changing to a sweet, minty fragrance
after a few minutes. One victim recalled, "the smell was
good. You want to breathe more. You feel good when you inhale
it." The smoke often shifted to a "rainbow" of
changing colors. (11) (12)
From five to thirty minutes
after breathing the gas, victims began to feel sick and have
difficulty breathing. A searing pain began to wrench their gut,
followed by vomiting, sometimes of blood, then complete hysteria
and extremely violent convulsions. Many victims suffered a relentless
syndrome for days or weeks afterward, alternating between convulsions
and periods of conscious, twitching, vomiting agony. Palestinians
agreed: "This is like nothing we've ever seen before."
(13)
Forty people were admitted
to Al-Nasser Hospital "in an odd state of hysteria and nervous
breakdown", suffering from "fainting and spasms."
Sixteen gas patients had to be transferred to the intensive care
unit. Doctors "reported the Israeli use of gas that appeared
to cause convulsions." (14)
At the Gharbi refugee camp,
thirty-two people "were treated for serious injuries"
following exposure to the gas. Dr. Salakh Shami at Al-Amal Hospital
reported the hospital receiving "about 130 patients suffering
from gas inhalation from February 12." (15)
Bewildered medical personnel
had "never seen anything..like the gas at Tufa." Victims
were "jumping up and down, left and right..thrashing limbs
around", suffering "convulsions..a kind of hysteria.
They were all shaking." Others were already unconscious.
An hour or two later, they would come to. And the convulsions
and the vomiting and disorientation and pain would return.(16)
The following day, February
13, Israeli forces again deployed the strange new gas canisters
in Khan Younis. Over forty new gas victims, "including a
number of children..from 1 to 5 years-old", arrived at Al-Nasser
Hospital and the hospital of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
(17)
The news began to trickle out.
"Palestinian security services have accused the Israeli
army of using nerve gas during a gunbattle yesterday", reported
AFX News Limited, noting "the army has strongly denied the
charges." (18) The Voice of Palestine reported that "specialists
believe that this is an internationally banned nerve gas."
Those who inhaled the gas "suffered a nervous breakdown
and vomited blood." (19)
The next day, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
quoted Dr. Yasser Sheikh Ali from Al-Nasser Hospital: "Israel
has been using a powerful type of tear gas against the Palestinians
that causes convulsions and spasms." According to DPA, more
than 80 Palestinians...reported that Israeli soldiers had used
the white smoky gas, but Israel denied doing so." (20)
The Palestinian Centre for
Human Rights (PCHR) reported that on February 15 three more canisters
of the poison gas were fired at houses in the Khan Younis camp,
and "another 11 Palestinian civilians, mostly children,
suffered from suffocation and spasms due to gas inhalation."
(21) British journalist Graham Usher wrote that Khan Younis civilians
were "incapacitated" by "a 'new' form of toxic
gas." (22)
PA President Yasser Arafat
publicly "accused Israel of using poison gas." The
IDF issued a second denial. Israeli Communications Minister Ben-Eliezer
called reports of gas casualties in Khan Younis "incorrect
and false." Senior PA minister Nabil Shaath said that a
sample of the gas would be sent to "an international center
for analysis." (23) The results, if any, were never divulged.
On February 18, Israeli soldiers
near the Neve Dekalim settlement reportedly fired four poison
gas canisters at Palestinian houses in Khan Younis. Later that
afternoon, more canisters were fired, forcing Palestinians to
flee their homes. PCHR reported that "41 Palestinian civilians,
mostly children and women, suffered from suffocation and spasms."
(24) By PCHR's count, 238 Palestinians were affected by poison
gas attacks between February 12 and February 20. Twenty-seven
of the victims were still hospitalized on the 22nd. (25)
On March 2, an unknown gas
was used against civilians in the West Bank town of Al-Bireh.
Israeli soldiers reportedly fired "canisters of a highly
effective black gas similar to the one used in Khan Yunis three
weeks ago." (26)
Twenty-four days later, Israeli
forces east of Gaza City used a gas that "left symptoms
different from those of the..gas used first.. in Khan Yunis starting
from February 12..", although several similarities also
appeared. In this attack the onset of abdominal pain seemed to
be delayed. (27)
On March 30, medical professionals
in Nablus reported Israeli soldiers using the new poison gas
against Palestinian demonstrators. (28)
British journalist Jonathan
Cook reported a March gas attack on the schoolyard of Al-Khader
village, near Bethlehem. Thirteen year-old Sliman Salah was playing
when a gas canister landed next to him, "enveloping him
in a cloud of gas described by witnesses as an unfamiliar, yellow
colour." Large doses of anti-convulsants were required to
control the boy's seizures and maintain consciousness. His symptoms
"were finally brought under control five days after his
exposure to the gas. But Salah's father says the boy is still
suffering from stomach pains, vomiting, dizziness and breathing
problems." (29)
In its March, 2003 special
report, Israel's Secret Weapon, BBC Television reviewed this
series of gas attacks, noting, "The Israeli army has used
new unidentified weapons. In February 2001 a new gas was used
in Gaza. A hundred and eighty patients were admitted to hospitals
with severe convulsions....Israel is outside chemical and biological
weapons treaties and still refuses to say what the new gas was."
(30)
In my amateur analysis of the
reported comments of victims, eyewitnesses and medical professionals
regarding this series of attacks, I identified thirty-three distinct
symptoms attributed to the unidentified gas. All but three of
these symptoms appear to be typical of nerve gas poisoning. (31)
Tareg Bey, a chemical warfare expert at the University of California-Irvine,
told the Chicago Reader that the symptoms described to him "all
fit really well to nerve gas", though he was puzzled by
the reported fragrance and skin rashes. (32)
In an October 9, 2003 article,
Jennifer Loewenstein and Angela Gaff asked, "What gas is
Israel using?" They reported the story of Mukhles Burgal,
a Palestinian prisoner caught in a brutal attack inside Israel's
Ashkelon prison. The "guards forced their way into the crowded
cell, spraying two canisters of some type of gas. Some of the
14 prisoners passed out...The effects of the gas were severe
muscle spasms and an overwhelming sensation of not being able
to breathe." (33)
Two days later, Palestine Monitor
reported that Israeli forces in Rafah were allegedly "firing
gas grenades containing a black gas believed to be adamatite
[adamsite?]- the use of which is forbidden according to international
law. Medical authorities urged people to avoid the gas at all
costs, as it not only causes difficulty in breathing but seriously
affects the nervous system." (34) For some reason, PCHR's
press release from the same day, an apparent source of these
reports, is no longer available. (35) On the 14th, eyewitness
Laura Gordon wrote, "The army used some kind of nerve gas
for the first time in Rafah, leaving people in convulsions for
days." (36)
Following the recent gas attack
in Al-Zawiya, town officials reportedly told Al Ayyam newspaper,
"the Israeli occupation troops were using an illegal substance
that caused nerve spasms and that several cases had been transferred
to Nablus hospitals." (37)
The PA's International Press
Center reported that "official and public sources in..Al-Zawya..asserted
that those who have inhaled the tear gas IOF troops fired at
them four days ago are still suffering from the effects of the
gas...a number of those citizens have already had amnesias or
partial memory loss, in addition to cramps...in addition to strange
cramps every three hours... those who inhaled the gas are still
suffering severe pains in the joints and nausea for four days
now. Eyewitnesses recalled that the Israeli soldiers were keen
on picking the empty tear gas canisters.." Journalists told
IPC "that the gas was in different colors they have never
seen coming out of a tear gas canister before, and that some
gases had an unrecalled smell." (38)
According to IMEMC, "..tens
of demonstrators who inhaled this gas had partial memory loss.
Dr. Bassam Abu Madi told IMEMC that the some of those who inhaled
the gas had severe choking and some contraction in their feet
and arm muscles. Eyewitnesses said the gas has a strange smell
and a reddish-brownish color." [corrected copy] In a follow
up story, IMEMC concluded that "protesters were attacked
with gas that is not like the tear gas. Those who inhaled the
gas suffered some memory loss while others had other symptoms
of a nerve gas. Yet this was not medically confirmed for lack
of laboratories to inspect the gas canisters collected from the
scene." (39)
Al Jazeera reported the opinion
of Awni Khatib, a professor of chemistry at Hebron University;
"the new symptoms-particularly the violent convulsions experienced
by some Palestinian protesters outside the village of Sawiya
[Zawiya], southwest of Nablus-suggest..that the Israeli army
may be using a new class of chemicals that lie somewhere between
normal tear gas and chemical weapons." (40)
Israel's repeated use of highly
toxic unknown chemicals against Palestinian civilians is now
an open secret. We can expect these attacks to continue until
a concerted effort is made to determine the facts and hold Israel
accountable. So far, the international human rights community
has steadfastly ignored the mounting evidence.
When will professional investigators
begin to retrieve and test the gas canisters? Why has no one
but James Longley bothered to document interviews with victims,
doctors, and other eyewitnesses? In a world in which one country's
mere possession of chemical weapons can be an excuse for international
retribution, how another country's use of chemical weapons against
civilians be dismissed as a "regrettably excessive"
tactic of crowd control?
Our silence is poisoning Palestine.
James Brooks is a writer and webmaster for Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel.
He can be reached at: jamiedb@att.biz
1. One Israeli, one Palestinian
arrested and 40 wounded in anti-wall protest, International Middle
East Media Center, 6/14/2004
2. Sharon Praised While Wall
Construction Continues, Gush Shalom, 6/11/2004
3. The Jews of Iraq, by Naeim
Giladi, The Link, April-May, 1998, American Middle East Update
4. Traces of poison, by Salman
Abu-Sitta, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 27 Feb. - 5 March 2003
5. Israeli WMD - Israel's Weapons
of Mass Destruction, by Neil Sammonds, ZNet, 10/11/2002
6. ibid.
7. Traces of poison, by Salman
Abu-Sitta, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 27 Feb. - 5 March 2003
8. Israel's Anti-Civilian Weapons
by John F. Mahoney, January -March 2001
9. Diplomatic Struggle Follows
Bungled Assassination Attempt in Jordan, New York Times, October
15, 1997
10. Gaza Strip, James Longley,
producer 2001
11. The Israeli Poison Gas
Attacks: A Preliminary Investigation, James Brooks, Vermonters
for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel, January 8, 2003
12. Selected Interviews Gaza
Strip by James Longley
13. ibid.
14. Israelis Kill 14-year-old,
Assassinate Arafat Bodyguard, IANA Radionet, Islamic Assembly
of North America, February 13, 2001
15. Israeli Army Fires Highly
Toxic Quantities of Tear Gas at Civilians in Khan Yunis, Gaza,
Palestine Monitor, February 15, 2001
16. Selected
Interviews Gaza Strip by James Longley
17. Palestinian Centre for
Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Feb. 8 - 14, 2001
18. AFX News Limited, AFX European
Focus, February 13, 2001
19. Selected Interviews Gaza
Strip by James Longley
20. ibid.
21. Palestinian Centre for
Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, February 15 - 21, 2001
22. Unprepared for the worst,
by Graham Usher, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Feb. 15 - 21, 2001
23. Arafat accuses Israel of
using poison gas, CNN Asia, February 16, 2001
24. PCHR Weekly Report, Feb.
15 - 21, 2001
25. ibid.
26. Palestinian Centre for
Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, March 1 - 7, 2001 (contains
typographical error incorrectly listing incident as occurring
"Friday, February 22")
27. Palestinian Centre for
Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, March 22 - 29, 2001
28. Palestinian Centre for
Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, March 29 - April 4,
2001
29. Vale of tears: Tear or
poison gas?, by Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 5 - 11
April 2001
30. Israel's Secret Weapon,
transcript, BBC, March 17, 2003
31. Gas Attack/What Was It?/News
Bites, by Michael Miner, Chicago Reader, August 23, 2002 Reader
Archive--Article: 2002/020823/HOTTYPE
32. Symptoms - The Israeli
Poison Gas Attacks: A Preliminary Investigation, by James Brooks,
VTJP
33. What gas is Israel using?,
by Jennifer Loewenstein and Angela Gaff, Electronic Intifada,
10/9/2003
34. UPDATE: Israeli invasion
of Gaza refugee camps leave 7 dead and 65 injured meanwhile strict
lock down of Palestinian territories continues, Palestine Monitor,
10/11/2003
35. PCHR press release index
2003
36. Eyewitness account of the
invasion of Rafah, by Laura Gordon, International Middle East
Media Center, 10/14/2003
37. "This damned, racist
wall", by Omar Karmi, Palestine Report, 6/16/2004
38. Israeli Sources: IOF Uses
Chemical Weapons Against Palestinian Demonstrators, International
Press Center, 6/13/2004 [erroneously refers to Gush Shalom as
"Peace Now"]
39. Nonviolence Protestors
managed to halt the construction, International Middle East Media
Center, 6/16/2004
40. Palestinian resistance
leaders killed, Al Jazeera, June 26, 2004
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